Did anyone stay together for the children and not regret it?

[SadlyNotATroll]

As the title says really… did anyone stay for the kids and not regret it? We have two daughters of primary school age. There’s no abuse or anything, but we have nothing in common any more, we just sort of peacefully coexist. We don’t share a room, there’s no intimacy. Tale as old as time. We’ve discussed separation a few times recently but what it boils down to for both of us is not wanting to spend 50% of our lives away from the kids and feel we are a better unit together than apart. DH has made it clear the ball is in my court. One day I want to stay, the next I think we’d be better off apart.

has anyone stayed in similar and not regretted it?

Of course it can be. My mother left my father when I was very small and I didn’t see him again. Best thing she ever did.

My parents tried staying together for the kids, as did a pile of my friends parents. The subsequent collapse of our home lives the second we were off at uni fucked many of us up. We felt lied to, responsible for their misery and its impacted relationships long term.
So split or don't, but don't lie to the kids that you are happy with the situation. One parent will eventually move on with someone new and it will cause chaos and pain, and it can't be avoided no matter how old or young your children are.

It can be if there's abuse, and the parents put the child first afterwards, but that's rare

Of course it's for the children's benefit to leave if you're unhappy. Do you think children thrive in a miserable household, their MH isn't affected by seeing their parents clearly unhappy. Staying together and making your DC unhappy because you want to be around them all the time is just selfish IMO. Children's happiness should be first and foremost and splitting up is the lesser of 2 evils. Better to live with 1 happy parent than 2 miserable ones.

There's a big difference between dissatisfied and miserable. To me the OP sounds more dissatisfied than miserable.

I think it’s a myth that being unsatisfied in a relationship makes for an obviously unhappy parent. You can be happy with your family unit, with the companionship of a partnership, with the way you parent as a team, with the stability of your family home and the quality time you spend together as a family, without having the happiness of romantic and sexual love. Many posters on this thread attest to that. Kids don’t know, sense, or care if you’re fulfilled romantically or sexually - why should they? Children do care about being loved, their needs met, having stability. Sure you can have this while co-parenting, but not without inevitable pain and upheaval for the kids. I accept that it can feel untenable to some adults to live like this, and they therefore choose to leave. I don’t think that’s wrong, but I think it’s false to say children always know their parent is unhappy and absorb it. I never did. I sure as hell absorbed a lot of misery after they split, and experienced a lot of disruption. Frankly I was well aware that my parents (well, one of them) had followed their own desires, and find it quite laughable that this was for our benefit - it wasn’t! Far from thinking ‘hooray, they’re romantically fulfilled’ with new partners, I felt excluded and abandoned when they recoupled. Other people have different experiences, but that is how it was for me and a significant number of others on this thread, so the OP, having asked for advice, can weigh up all these different experiences.

But these days women have far more choices than 50-60 years ago. It’s fine.

Men can leave the family unit if they are dissatisfied and always have. But now women can also choose to not be with their partner even if they have kids.

Isn’t being a free adult great?

You're asking if the adults regret it. They're the wrong people.

You need to focus on what the kids will learn from it. And almost certainly it will be "settle for someone not right for you" and "mummy and daddy were only together because of me, so it's my fault they are unhappy"